Thursday, August 30 will be the plot day in Grand Meadow with Ken Ferrie speaking. We hope to see you there! Please call your CHS Agronomist with questions, or call the Grand Meadow location at 507-754-5125.

Getting the most out of an herbicide application not only includes maximizing efficacy, but also minimizing damage caused by herbicides. Being aware of what can go wrong and how to avoid it can lead to effective, on-target herbicide applications and help growers have a successful growing season – without the distress and loss caused by applications gone awry.

Two threats to herbicide applications are drift and volatilization. While they may seem similar, they are quite unique and require different attention to ensure that neither occur. (more…)

Spring and warmer weather are upon us. It’s a great time to plant the seed of community support and grow pride in your community by encouraging your local cooperative to apply for a Seeds for Stewardship matching grant. Since Seeds for Stewardship began in early 2017, CHS has partnered with more than 70 local cooperatives on more than 100 projects in rural communities. Your cooperative could be next!

The Chatfield feed store will be having a Parasite Evaluation Clinic on Wednesday, June 13 from 10 am to 2 pm with lunch served for those attending the clinic. Bags for fecal samples will be available at the feed store. For more information, call the Chatfield feed store at 507-867-4311.

Not all risk is bad. While farmers work hard to reduce financial risk, innovators take calculated risks when it comes to new when it comes to new agronomic approaches.

Illinois farmer Maria Cox is one of those innovators. She and her crop advisor, Kyle Lake, with CHS in Carrollton, Ill., were named 2018 4R Advocates by The Fertilizer Institute. Each year, the award recognizes five farmer-retail agronomist teams who are dedicated to implementing the 4Rs of nutrient stewardship: using the right nutrient source, at the right rate, at the right time and in the right place.

In conversations with Cox and others who have actively embraced the 4Rs, common management challenges and strategies emerge. Among all the technologies and tactics they’ve tried, these growers point to strategies that are producing the biggest benefits in terms of soil health and the bottom line.

Shift application timing

Returning to the family farm outside White Hall, Ill., after working in agribusiness for four years meant Cox brought a fresh perspective to the row crop side of the business. Her father, Ethan, gradually began turning over management of the 3,000-acre corn-soybean-corn- silage operation to Maria, the sixth generation to manage it. This allowed him to focus on their 100-head cow-calf herd and backgrounding enterprise.

“I looked at the things we had been doing well, including building grass waterways and buffer strips and using no-till systems on highly erodible fields,” she says. “But I also began looking for things we could be doing better. My education and work experiences taught me to question everything.”

She started by looking at when and how fertilizer was applied. Historically, most of the nutrients had been applied via commercial fertilizer and manure in the fall at a flat rate, based on crop removal levels. Working with Lake, Cox began implementing the 4R principles to improve nutrient efficiency and minimize waste. They shifted much of the farm’s commercial fertilizer application to the spring — a major decision, since many growers in Greene County on the state’s west side still apply most of their fertilizer in the fall, says Lake.

“The Cox farm now fall-applies nitrogen on only the first fields to be planted to corn in the spring, and they use split nitrogen applications, including a side-dress pass, on most corn fields,” he adds. Those changes have improved nitrogen use efficiency from 1.5 to 1.2 pounds per bushel on many fields and to 0.9 pound per bushel on the most productive fields.

Variable-rate Value

For Minnesota farmer Tony Rossman, grid soil-sampling and variable-rate fertilizer application have become his most important tools for maximizing efficiency and minimizing environmental nutrient loss in his corn-soybean rotation. Topography in his fields north of Rochester transitions from flat prairie to rolling hills, which requires a customized approach for each field and sometimes each acre.

“Spoon-feeding the crop when it needs nutrients is not always the most convenient management approach, since it often requires another pass across the field,” he says, “but that’s part of delivering nutrients at the right time for maximum plant uptake.”

Despite variability from one growing season to the next, Rossman has seen yields climb consistently over the last five years since he began working with agronomists at CHS in Rochester, Minn., to put his 1,600 acres into CHS YieldPoint® services.

Question every pass

Fall tillage is still fairly common in many parts of Illinois, but as she returned to the operation, Cox says she was quick to question whether deep tillage was necessary.

“My dad had been successfully no-tilling soybeans for years and it just seemed logical to build on that approach on our corn acres,” she says. “By eliminating tillage passes, we’re not only saving money but saving soil.”

Aiming for a mostly no-till system, Cox decided to try strip tillage with ammonia application on several fields last fall. “It should deliver the best of both worlds, disturbing only one-third of the soil surface while creating a nice bed for corn to be planted into in the spring,” she says.

“The fields had been planted to an oat cover crop and the row cleaners did an excellent job ahead of the anhydrous knives,” recalls Lake. “There hasn’t been much strip tillage done in our area, but it looks very promising.”

Evaluate cover crops

In just a few years of working with cover crops, Rossman says he’s seen benefits including improved water infiltration and less runoff, especially during heavy rainfalls; increased organic matter levels; and less weed pressure from waterhemp and other species.

“Over the past four years, we’ve been fairly aggressive about using cover crops, including cereal rye, brassicas and turnips,” he says. “We started by seeding after harvest on the 200 acres of sweet corn and peas we raise annually for a local canning plant, but have also begun flying cover crop seed onto corn stubble, hoping to get about 4 inches of growth in the fall. Ryegrass typically regrows 10 to 12 inches in the spring before we apply a burndown treatment.”

His cattle graze cover crops in late fall. “They eat the grass and spread manure naturally. It’s very sustainable and one more way our cattle enterprise brings value to the crop side,” says Rossman.

Water quality results

Monitoring water quality is another means of measuring nutrient management success. With a river running through part of his Oronoco, Minn., farm, and as a cattle-and-hog producer who regularly applies manure to fields, Rossman says he has always been responsible about fertilizer use.

Along with using a nitrogen stabilizer and knifing in manure to avoid odor issues and volatilization, he helped organize a small group of local producers who share information about sustainable best practices, including tillage strategies and cover crop use. The group’s research led Rossman to enroll in the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program, a voluntary program of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. He is working toward certification through the program, which requires taking regular water samples to monitor contaminant levels.

The global grain trading business is risky. Avalanches and mudslides can stop trains in their tracks. Striking union workers can halt grain loading at port. Freezing sea spray and high swells can delay ocean vessels for days. Commodity prices and costs shift constantly.

While those situations may be beyond a grain company’s control, there are countless other factors that a team of CHS experts successfully manages 365 days a year – always focused on efficiency, safety and profitability. (more…)

CHS Inc., the nation’s leading farmer-owned cooperative and a global energy, grains and foods company, today reported net income of $346.7 million for the first half of its 2018 fiscal year (six-month period ended Feb. 28, 2018), compared to net income of $223.7 million for the same time period a year ago.

Consolidated revenues for the first half of fiscal 2018 were $14.9 billion, down from $15.4 billion for the first half of fiscal 2017. Pretax income was $185.0 million and $249.1 million for the first half of fiscal 2018 and 2017, respectively. (more…)

CHS now has more than 100 ResponsibleAg certified facilities from its CHS Country Operations and CHS Agronomy divisions. Out of all U.S. fertilizer facilities receiving this certification, CHS represents 12 percent of the total.

ResponsibleAg was started in 2014 to assist agribusinesses as they sought to comply with federal environmental, health, safety and security rules regarding the safe handling and storage of fertilizer products. The rigorous application process includes a checklist of more than 320 questions about federal regulatory requirements. To be certified as a ResponsibleAg facility, locations must be 100 percent compliant with the entire checklist. (more…)

When people ask CHS Government Affairs staff what it’s like to work as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., they’re always curious about how the political landscape has changed in recent years. Sarah Gallo, director, CHS Government Affairs, is happy to share anecdotes, but she’d rather discuss how the conversation about agriculture has evolved. Students, farmers and the ag industry will carry that message to Capitol Hill on National Ag Day, to be celebrated March 20 in Washington, D.C., and across the country. (more…)